Tag Archives: Grandchildren

How it humbles me to know — that my granddaughter’s suitcase has been packed since four o’clock yesterday — that she could hardly wait to spend time with me.

Relationships between grandparents and their grandchildren are as mystical as the nature of time and life itself. Without trying to reduce it to words, all I can say is that what is ordinary somehow becomes extraordinary when “grand” people get together. It was that way with me and mine, that way between my children and theirs and now, it appears, it’s also that way with my own ‘grands.’

Me and this once curly top grandchild of mine — the one coming today — go way back. We spent many days together, Curly Karson and I — the best part of two years — back during her Shirley Temple look-alike years, when this photo was taken, in the midst of her third year of life. Six years fast-forward, she’s in the middle of her ninth year. And, I pray, I won’t sound too grandmother-ish by commenting how I think she’ growing up way too fast, which, I fear, means I too, must be growing old right beside her?

Much like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I feel as if I’m standing at the intersection of four different yellow brick roads. From this point of the post, I could take off in many directions. Why if I wished I could write of those lessons Karson taught me — about paying attention to life — which she did, without effort, while I was attending to her young life. “Look, Nana, an airplane!” — “Look, Nana. Birds.” And sure enough. Who but a child would notice them, or regard them as a miracle to share? Airplanes and birds in the sky. Why I learned during those years that there was an ever ready, never ending supply of flying objects to notice — why all one had to do was stop, look and listen to the larger world around them — rather than keeping their heads in clouds or lost in the latest task at hand.

Or shall I recall how Shirley Temple look-alikes run in our family, how my Aunt Carol, when she was a pre-schooler, was ‘discovered’ by a Hollywood talent scout in the late thirties. Oh how he wished to sign her on the spot to play Shirley’s little sister, after seeing my not-yet aunt perform a song and dance routine on top of a neighborhood bar? Funny how Aunt Carol called out of the blue yesterday to make sure I was paying attention to the ‘severe’ weather forecasts, to make sure I had a storm cellar to run to if need arose.

Or do I confess how different today will be, after spending the last three weeks with ghosts of family past — thinking, thinking, thinking — occasionally writing — occasionally uncovering a new puzzle piece to add to the pile — occasionally making a magical connection, locking a couple of puzzling pieces of Dad’s childhood story together. Why his story consumes me. Which is to say, history consumes me, that it consumes the best hours of the day, as time slips like sand through an hourglass, while I sit in a chair with monkeys on my back — stories and old photos spread about me — wondering about next steps. I’m all alone with it, with only Aunt Carol’s memory and historical archives to point me in another direction, in my chase of rainbows and fabled pots of gold lying at tale’s end.

But as for the direction of this post, I suppose it’s most fitting to attend to the present, like Karson taught me all those years ago. She’ll be here in an hour or so. Already, since writing these words, she’s called to let me know how excited she is to come. And do I have exciting plans? Well, no. Not really. Oh, I suppose we’ll make sugar cookies, because as she says, we ALWAYS make cookies, don’t we Nana?

But as for the rest, i don’t know what the day and evening will hold. There’s no use planning it to death, since children, too, prefer wiggle room for rainbow chasing and pots of gold. But, perhaps, if weather forecasters are wrong and weather plays nice, we’ll go to the art museum.

Or, if weather turns nasty and predictable, we can just stay home — pop some corn and watch something stormy on the small screen. Maybe we’ll watch Helen Hunt chase a Twister or two with that Dorothy weather invention of her’s. Or maybe, we’ll immerse ourselves in history, and watch a twister of a different shade that begins in marvelous black and white and dumps an over-the-rainbow singing Dorothy Gail and ToTo, too, into a magical land of living color.

Wherever we land, here’s hoping Karson saved space in that suitcase of her’s for a few grand memories to take home with her.

And though I’m somewhat ashamed in admitting my truth, I realize I always draw boundaries tighter when my husband leaves town — as he did this week. Maybe it’s a carryover from helping raise four children. With one of us away, the other always tightened focus to keep a busy two-parent home afloat.

However, having a smaller world view is also, for better or worse, part of who I am; I tend to lavishly love the ones I’m with – when in Texas, it was friends; now that I’m home, it’s family. Moreover, I attempt to live free of what will steal my peace. For example, I avoid violent films because viewing them robs me of an ability to sleep – for a long time. I can still remember in full gory detail a Dirty Harry film I saw in my late teens. And now, without nudge to prompt them, my thoughts pull up the year I became a teen, when I saw Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood at the drive-in theater with my family. Just writing the words of the film’s title flash up a slicer scene I shiver to remember.

So while I’m a dreamer, maybe it’s less by nature than nurture. Maybe it’s what the world has made of me, the way I’ve learned to cope and live within a broken world. I tell myself I don’t live life with my head buried in the sand but rather high up in the clouds — dreaming all sorts of good dreams of a better world – one full of beauty and truth and love. But perhaps I’m kidding myself; and it’s only silly semantics.

So this week, while my radius didn’t reach as far as Libya, it did extend a mile uptown to embrace not only my new home but more importantly, my new not yet two-month old granddaughter who suffers from gut-wrenching colic. Poor Reese Caroline — when she draws in her legs to cradle her belly. She hurts without knowing the reasons why. I wonder — is she frightened too? And pity her mother who tries to comfort her without knowing how to offer relief – this time; because this time will not be like last time or the time before that.

This little girl cannot sleep by herself for pain and sometimes cannot eat without pain. Medications have lessened the hurt without eliminating it. Sometimes her special sensitive diet helps. But there are no magic tricks left in the doctor’s bag – the only thing that seems to consistently work is never putting the baby down. The photo above was last Monday’s “Kodak Moment”, when Kara shared her joy with family of a baby FINALLY sleeping solo. Yet ultimately, I know, in spite of all the love and support my daughter has in the world in and outside her walls, Kara has to feel terribly alone in this. Surely she must feel like it’s her and Reese braving the battle against colic, with the rest of us standing somewhere on the sidelines. Helping the best we can – waiting until the baby’s digestive system matures.

So. I didn’t pray for Libya this week but I did for little Reese. And I sat with her to give my daughter a break from the scary front-lines of motherhood. And though I was not the one my granddaughter wanted, I rocked her in my arms anyway. Sometimes I sat in the rocker and other times I rocked her walking laps around the house. And when walking alone didn’t work, I sang a silly little made-up song that seemed to bring comfort.

God love you. God love you. God love you, Reese Caroline.

I sang it over and over and over until ten or twelve laps around, Reese stopped crying to listen. Until quiet dissolved into peace. And drowsy eyelids fluttered shut. Small facial features relaxed. And relief came for both of us.

This morning, as I thought about Libya, I felt small. I felt small for having my mile-wide radius. I felt small for not realizing how the Libyan people were living in a colicky world too — for surely they too draw up their legs in bunkered down homes that no longer feel safe. I felt small in thinking how violence in their real world – rather than one made of imagination viewed with the price of admission — had rocked away their sense of peace and well-being. Like any on the front-lines fighting colic, I imagine the Libyan people too are suffering from a lack of precious sleep.

Oh Libya! I know you must feel terribly alone now. How I long to reach out my arms to bind and comfort you, even by singing off-key my small silly song: God love you. God love you. God love you, little Libya. And how I wish I could whisper softly in your ear that it will be all better soon, once your system for life matures. Yes, I do. I really do.

“I have not so far left the coasts of life To travel inland, that I cannot hearThat murmur of the outer InfiniteWhich unweaned babies smile at in their sleepWhen wondered at for smiling…” — Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh